Kenny Moore II has his work cut out for him when it comes to the NFL's annual My Cause, My Cleats game.
The cornerback, a self-proclaimed fashion enthusiast, is always intentional about his outfits; from gameday arrivals to the gloves he wears on Sundays, Moore puts thought into everything he wears.
But when that November game rolls around each year – when he has the opportunity to showcase and promote a cause near and dear to his heart for the whole world to see – Moore puts even more time and consideration into what his cleats look like.
Over his last eight years in the league, Moore has represented a different cause each year, including A Kid Again, the Mighty Mason Foundation and his own non-profit, Love One Foundation. This year, in his ninth season, Moore had plenty of causes to choose from that are all near and dear to his heart – but his decision this year was as easy as it comes.
When Moore takes the field on Sunday at Lucas Oil Stadium, as the Colts return home for the first time since Oct. 26, he'll do so representing a cause that resonates with every single person in the stadium, from owners Carlie Irsay-Gordon, Kalen Jackson and Casey Foyt to the fans in the highest rafters: Kicking the Stigma.
Launched by the Irsay family and the Colts in 2020, Kicking the Stigma aims to raise awareness for the mental health crisis in Indiana and combat the feelings of shame associated with mental illness. The initiative also works to encourage everyone, professional athletes or not, to ask for help if they are struggling with mental health and inspire people to speak up and share their stories.
Moore won't be the only one wearing KTS-themed cleats on Sunday; Shane Steichen, Jonathan Taylor, Grover Stewart and Jaylon Jones are among those sporting shoes supporting the mental health initiative.
Some players have chosen to represent the campaign every year, but this is the first time Moore chose Kicking the Stigma as his cause. The timing never felt better.
"It was a no-brainer for me," he said. "I've been through a lot this year alone, honestly, and thinking about my personal experience rather than my community presence, something that hit home for me is mental health."
Moore has always been vocal about supporting mental health, but this year has made it even more of a personal matter for him.
On the football side of things, he sustained an Achilles injury that sidelined him for three games (Weeks 4, 5 and 6) and pointed to that as both a mental and physical challenge. The injury itself was a confusing one, he said, just in making sure nothing else became aggravated during the rehab process. But because of the support around him and his own mental fortitude that he's built up over the years, he was able to keep a positive mindset and get back out on the field feeling like himself.
"I've got a lot of support around me within this building, inside this building, to make sure I'm good mentally," Moore said in October, prior to his return to the field. "There's a lot that we put our bodies through to even get back to where we want to be, mentally and physically, to be good enough to say, 'Hey, I can go again.'"
And off the field, Moore has battled against the same kind of problems that all of us face on a regular basis.
"You're trying to build stuff, you want to manage stuff, you're tied to a lot of different things emotionally," he explained. "It's not just football. And then with football, with my career, you just want to be the best. You got to delegate your time to other things, but you know you want to be the best at so many things. Those things take a toll on your mental health."
Moore has typically taken the more "cryptic" approach, as he phrased it, to speaking up about mental health; he's posted song lyrics, motivational quotes and Bible verses on his social media to motivate those around him. It's extremely difficult to publicly voice your own mental health struggles, and he still wants to make sure people know it's okay not to be okay all the time – even as a professional athlete.
"I can't always say everything is great, because everything isn't great," he said. "So I want to express my soul in different ways of saying like, you're enough, or you're loved, or – if I see a lyric from a song or something like that, I post that on X or IG or something like that, just to tell people it's okay not to be okay.
"You don't have to necessarily say what you're going through to still encourage others to know that you're not always 100 percent or you're not always on a pedestal – we're people and we go through things as well."
Moore felt more of a calling this year to represent Kicking the Stigma because of his own personal struggles, and he felt empowered to do so largely because of the time and effort the Colts organization has put into improving the mental health space.
"It's kind of given me the vulnerability to speak up," Moore said. "Just being able to see what they've done, how innovative they are in that space, how encouraging and motivating they are in that space, it hits home on a personal level. And I hope it does for a lot of different guys on the team, just being able to realize that your own organization supports it. It makes me, as an individual, want to speak up about my own mental health."
Every Tuesday, on his one off day of the week, Moore makes the trip to Cardinal Ritter High School in the northwest part of Indianapolis. Moore has been involved with Cardinal Ritter essentially since he moved to Indianapolis in 2017 – Levar Johnson, the school's head football coach, was Moore's trainer out of college. Over the years, through the LoveOne Foundation, Moore has partnered with the school for a variety of educational initiatives and become a regular presence in the school hallways.
But this year, Moore stepped it up even more – he became a part of the staff. When he walks through the doors every Tuesday, he's not Kenny Moore II, the accomplished Colts cornerback. He's Mr. Kenny, the eighth-grade life skills teacher.
Moore teaches about everything from how to maintain healthy relationships to financial literacy. Over the last few weeks, he's been focusing on mental health.
"They feel like they're the kings and queens of middle school, so they think they got it all figured out, they got life figured out and they're so great, but then again, like they're going to be going into high school where they're not as big and popping as they think they are," Moore explained with a smile. "So mental health will come into play when they realize that it's not all about them, or whenever they leave high school and it's time to figure out what college to go to."
Knowing his audience, Moore has chosen to take a simplistic approach to taking away the stigma around mental health.
"It's kind of like a touchy subject, because they don't really think that they have mental health," he said, outlining how he makes it more accessible. "Like okay, some days you're not feeling okay – why is that? Or like, what are some things that you're going through? And they realized that oh, some people close to me aren't here anymore, or I had a bad grade and I'm trying to respond from that. So that kind of shows them that's mental health. It's not just that you're depressed. It's more so how can you bounce back from your rainy days?"
Moore plans to revisit the topic of mental health after Thanksgiving – and after the Colts' My Cause My Cleats game this weekend – and he'll be able to, if he chooses, show his students pictures of all of the NFL players and coaches who also represented Kicking the Stigma on a national stage.
It only takes one person speaking up to inspire another person to seek help. Imagine what it could do for someone – an eighth grader, an adult or another professional athlete – to see an entire NFL organization taking up such an integral cause.
The full list of those representing Kicking the Stigma:
- Carlie Irsay-Gordon
- Kalen Jackson
- Casey Foyt
- Shane and Nina Steichen
- Samson Ebukam
- Mike Hilton
- Jaylon Jones
- Chris Lammons
- Sean McKeon
- Kenny Moore II
- Jimmy Morrissey
- Ben Nikkel
- Josh Sills
- Grover Stewart
- Jonathan Taylor
- Rodney Thomas II
- Dalton Tucker
- Anthony Walker
- Trey Washington
Colts players representing other mental health initiatives:
- Ulysses Bentley IV - The Elephant in the Room
- Braden Smith - IOCDF
- Durrell Nchami - National Alliance of Mental Health
- Anthony Gould - 988
- Ashton Dulin - Suicide Prevention
- Tanor Bortolini - NAMI
